Transcription
Hello, welcome back to our lecture series for Western Civilization 102. We have started discussing the French Revolution, and we left off discussing the origins of the French Revolution, what led up to the revolution in France. Of course, for today's lecture, uh, Mr. Chauvin will actually get into the French Revolution itself and discuss the warfare and the terror that results because of the French Revolution.
Um, we know that the three Estates, the kind of the governing body in France, was called by Louis XVI to pass a land tax. Problem was, they hadn't been called for quite a long time, and there's a problem with how they're going to vote. I actually mentioned that in our last lecture. And so you had the three Estates. The first two were more aristocratic. The third, of course, was more of the common people. The common people, the Third Estate, wanted each person to vote. They are the biggest estate, they would always control the voting. The first two Estates wanted to see the voting by estate, which means they could always band together, the first two Estates, and they'd always control the vote. Doesn't seem like this is going to come to an easy solution. Obviously, it doesn't. The Third Estate eventually breaks off, refuses to sit with the others, and they will meet at a tennis court, actually, and they have the Tennis Court Oath. Oath, which the Third Estate swore that they wouldn't disband until they wrote a constitution. A constitution. We don't think much of constitutions. We obviously have the United States Constitution that's continually, we, we look to, Supreme Court looks at, even to this day, and as a guide for us. But not everyone had constitutions at this time. It was not, not a normal thing, in other words. And so this began everything, you know, this, this helped to create the spark.
Here, Louis XVI is not very politically astute. He really isn't. Um, when he's ready to reform, it's too late. When he needs to, he doesn't do anything about it. Um, of course, you know that he eventually loses his head, along with his wife, Marie Antoinette, as a result of the French Revolution. You have other famous incidents taking place as far as the French Revolution is concerned. I'm sure you learn about the Bastille, of course, is a very famous occurrence that happened in the French Revolution. You also have what's called the Great Fear in August of 1789. That's where there would be, um, the peasants will take up arms and turn on their local landlords, burning their houses and even killing them at times. You also have a very famous night called August the 4th, 1789. That's when a French nobleman renounced his feudal privileges, which means his, you know, because he was an aristocrat, he could have hunting rights and fishing rights and, you know, he just, he had more good stuff, and he renounced all of it. Didn't have to pay taxes, that kind of thing. So this was a very important night right there when he renounced his feudal privileges. You also have other events taking place, such as the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which provided an ideological framework for the constitution and helped to maintain enthusiasm for the revolution.
Now, the French Revolution doesn't begin radical. I mean, it doesn't begin to where they're killing their king or they're killing the aristocracy, but it eventually will come to that, most definitely. Eventually, of course, we have what's called the Reign of Terror. A guy by the name of Robespierre was a very important revolutionary leader at the time, and that's when a lot, thousands of the French nobility, the French aristocracy will meet Mr. Guillotine, which was a humanitarian way, according to the inventor, of killing people. Of course, the important thing is, is that you can kill people rather quickly and easily, and a lot of the aristocracy, along with Louis XVI eventually, and his wife, Marie Antoinette, will meet Mr. Guillotine. Very, very bloody times in France. You had the aristocrats fleeing, running for their lives, and, you know, you'll see that the French Revolution doesn't, it doesn't just involve the country of France. It also affects the rest of Europe as well. Um, Prussia and Austria, they're monarchies, they're, they're looking at France and they're seeing this revolution, and they're not too happy with seeing how the monarchy is being treated in France. And so you can imagine that, you know, countries like Prussia and Austria, they want to do something about it because they're scared. They're fearful that this may spread to their country if it's successful in France. So France not only has the French Revolution within France, but we'll see France also fighting other countries in Europe and not just dealing with what's happening internally, of course.
So you'll learn other, you'll learn about the October Days. There was a constitution that was created in 1791. Um, you'll learn more about the government of France, I guess, under the, uh, the French Revolution, and eventually, of course, all of this chaos and all this revolution will lead to the, um, the rise in power of a very famous figure in history by the name of Napoleon. And, you know, Napoleon wasn't actually French, just to let you know. When you think Napoleon, you think France, but he wasn't born in France, which is interesting. So Mr. Chauvin will take us through the French Revolution, you know, hit on some of the, the main topics that are happening in France during this period, and eventually, of course, we'll discuss Napoleon, and then we'll talk about what happens in Europe after the French Revolution, which is, is very interesting to see how Europe reshapes itself after the French Revolution takes place. So let's learn more about the warfare and terror.
In 1792, the French Revolution is going to take a turn. Where we left off last time with the French Revolution, uh, Louis XVI, the king of France, will call the Estates General to Versailles in 1789 because he needs money. He needs a way to pay off or to keep making payments on the debt. The national debt in France had soared up in the 18th, in the 18th century because of wars that had been fought, from the War of the Austrian Succession that led into the Seven Years' War, that led to the French helping the Americans in the American Revolution. The war debt, coupled with royal debt in France, had pushed interest payments alone exceeding 50 percent of the expenditures within the French budget. And to keep up with the payments of the debt, Louis XVI, as a last resort, he didn't want to do this, he called the Estates General to Versailles. The Estates General is an ancient legislative body in France that hadn't met since 1614. And here it was in 1789, and he reluctantly calls this Estates General together. The Estates General, he didn't know it at the time, but when he calls this Estates General to Versailles to help come up with ways to reform the financial system and ways to pay the debt, maybe reform the tax system in France, he had no idea that it was going to be the start of, uh, of the revolution that will bring down the French monarchy.
And what happens with the Estates General as it transforms itself into the National Assembly, and as you have the storming of the Bastille, the Declaration of the Rights of Man, eventually you're going to have the women's march to Versailles to where they will force the king back to the center of Paris. They'll force him to live in his, uh, in basically held captive in his palace in, in Paris throughout the rest of the, this section of the, this portion of the French Revolution. Uh, what the National Assembly will do, as we talked last time, they will begin the process of making a new constitution for France, and it would be a constitution that would be, uh, establishing a constitutional monarchy, which would be a different system than what France, uh, had previously used, which was pretty much the absolute monarchy that was established all the way back with Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu, all the way through Louis XIV and used by his grandfather, Louis XV. That absolute monarchy, once he calls the Estates General, the absolute monarchy goes away, and now that National Assembly, formed out of the Third Estate of the Estates General, writes down, puts it in writing, a constitutional monarchy, which limits the, the monarchy a great deal and transforms the, the way that the French government worked. Uh, it created these 83 departments or regions throughout France. These 83 departments, in effect, acted as if they were their own parishes or states that conducted business on a regional level. In many ways, the way that the constitutional monarchy worked was more like a federalist system, where you had a national government and you had local governments, where local people in those 83 departments elected the leaders to serve in those areas. Those 83 departments were created out of the French provinces that were once ruled by the aristocracy, the nobility. Now it's run on a much more democratic level.
Now, this constitutional monarchy, of course, has in its name monarchy, meaning that the king is still around, and the king is going to be around and part of it. And to large extent, he is going along with this process of creating the new constitution, only in a sense of maybe establishing, uh, his presence in order to buy himself some time. What happens, uh, in 1791, just before the new constitution and and the rules come out, the king actually tries to leave France, to escape France with his royal family. They actually disguise themselves, but the disguise won't work. Uh, he'll be recognized by a postmaster before he gets out of the country, and then he's returned to Paris and forced to return to the palace. To some extent, this attempted escape by the king discredits the new government that was established by the National Assembly, because what they created was a constitutional monarchy. And there begins to be pressure put on the, the new government under the National Assembly and the new constitution by people that want more change. There are even people that don't want a monarchy at all. After all, many people in France are familiar with what happened across the Atlantic Ocean in America, creating a new republic, and many people in France actually wanted a republic. And if you have a republic, you don't have a king.
Now, as we get into October of 1791, the new constitution is in place. This written constitution diminishes the monarchy, limits the monarchy, but it's still there. Uh, the nobility in this constitution forfeit all of their rights and privileges that they had under the old regime. Generally, people are going to gain, or at least men are going to gain, individual rights and liberties and legal equality. Now, that new constitution will come about officially in October of 1791, and within a year, that new constitution will be gone. Uh, a radical element will take over in France, and this radical element is going to push for radical change. Many people in France are still not satisfied with the changes that are made in the new constitution, and particularly in Paris, you start having organizational meetings, groups that are getting together to meet, to try and organize to push for more change within the system. One particular group of people were the urban poor, the people who lived around Paris in in Paris. This particular group, known as the Sans-culottes, are going to be a group that will push for much more radical change. This group, consisting of a large group of of urban poor that actually worked, had jobs. These people are going to be used by other radical members who really aren't part of that group, known as the Sans-culottes. The word Sans-culottes, by the way, it refers to the, it was a, it was a phrase of contempt, meaning, uh, originally meaning without knee-breeches. These were people who couldn't afford the, the knee-breeches that, uh, people in the upper ranks of society, uh, would wear. They simply wore their pants all the way to the ground. So the Sans-culottes themselves will take that, uh, original term of contempt and turn it around and use it as, as a force, as a force to be reckoned with, that we're, we're the working class, we know how to get things done, we're men without mansions, uh, there's, we're men without lackeys to do things for us, uh, were people who live simply, we are useful. These are people who refer to others as citizen rather than, uh, the formal terms of Monsieur and Madame.
Now, these groups would get together, have meetings, but it wasn't just meetings that they would have in Paris. There would be literature that went around that went along with these meetings, pamphlets and newspapers that would be published daily, all with a very radical agenda of establishing a government without a monarchy. But again, you have a monarch in France, you have a king, and what the new constitution did is establish this constitutional monarchy. The executive control still rested with the monarchy. It was a system that was similar to what they had in England, but again, all they had to do was look across the Atlantic and see what the Americans had done without having a monarchy. They created a government, a republic, and many of these want a bigger change than what the new constitution just gave them. Now, other radicals who aren't part of this group, really, these other radicals are members of the bourgeoisie, the, the upper middle class group, who are also people who want radical change. They want to do away with the monarchy. These people are going to lead the Sans-culottes into a fighting force of sorts, a large group of people who were will continue to pressure for change.
Now, what happens as we get in the new constitution goes into effect in October of 1791, and as we get into 1792, in the early months of 1792, there's rumors that the Austrians and Prussians are making an advance with their armies toward France. The other aristocracies in Europe are watching what has happened in France. They don't, you know, they're watching to some degree, they're watching, uh, in horror of what has happened in France with this revolution and the king virtually held in captivity in his palace. And the aristocracies of Prussia and Austria begin to make threatening, uh, remarks toward the French people through diplomatic channels and other channels, in, in the newspapers and so forth, for the French people not to harm the, the royal family. And what this does is this really ignites the, the people of Paris, uh, to a great degree. People, the Sans-culottes and and others in the radical element of the revolutionary movement begin to believe that the king and his wife, Marie Antoinette, who is an Austrian, are or communicating with the Prussians and the Austrians to come help them out, especially since Marie Antoinette is an Austrian, it would be easy for her to ask the Austrians for help in re-establishing the, the old system, the old regime with the absolute monarchy in France. And there were, there was really a frenzy that these armies were marching toward France. And, to some degree, this is a preemptive strike. What the French do under their, uh, legislature, and by the way, at this point, the, this, the National Assembly that they originally created under the new constitution, there is now this Legislative Assembly, which is the legislature for the country, the same as Parliament in England or Congress in America. This Legislative Assembly decides to declare a war on Prussia and Austria as a preemptive strike. This is in April of 1792.
Now, the, the war goes poorly for the French at first. There's a lack of organization, there's a, the fact that a lot of the aristocracy are out of their positions within the, the military, and those aristocracy, the nobility that was in charge of certain elements of the military are now out of favor and they're not really running the military. Uh, it takes a while before the French get their act together and things go poorly. And in fact, the Austrians and the Prussians begin to advance into France and toward Paris. And as this happens, there's more and more rumors that are circulating throughout the City of Paris that the king and Marie Antoinette, the queen, are part of this element of conspiring with the enemy, communicating with the enemy. And many people thought that the Prussians and the Austrians were coming to save the monarchy. Um, by the time you get to August of 1792, the radical element in France is going to stir up the, the Parisian mob of men and women, some say the numbers are around 20,000. And they will storm the palace. They'll storm the, the king and queen's palace in the center of Paris. The, the Tuileries Palace is the, is where the king now resides. And of course, he was forced to move from Versailles, located about 12 miles out of town, into the center of town. When these 20,000 people stormed the palace, the men and women, the guards that are, there's only about 900 guards that they have, the Swiss Guards, and many of them flee and many of them are killed. Uh, the king and the queen, the royal family, they're able to escape into the Legislative Assembly Chambers for protection. But what the Legislative Assembly does, they realize that the monarchy is discredited. It had been discredited since the king had tried to escape the year before. Um, and because of the activity on the streets in Paris, the Legislative Assembly, even though the royal family goes there for safety, they will decide to put the king in prison. They basically jail, uh, the king. They still have this constitutional monarchy, but they put the king in jail.
Now, at this point, there's so much pressure on the Legislative Assembly, the, the form of government that had just been created, uh, in France in the previous autumn. There's so much pressure by the time you get to the end of August and the beginning of September that they are forced to call for new elections to draw up a new constitution. They're forced to call elections for delegates to a National Convention. And in this National Convention would draw up a, a new constitution. And since the radicals have taken to the streets, you have this war effort, Austrians and Prussians marching forward, they're going to win the day in these elections that are held in September. And the delegates to the National Convention are going to be much more radical, and they are going to take matters into their own hands. On September the 22nd, when the elections, uh, just after the elections are held, this new group in the National Convention simply proclaims an end to the monarchy. If the monarchy is over and France is a republic. So on September 22nd, 1792, the National Convention, this new body that was elected with these special elections, crew basically establishes a French Republic, and the king is in jail, and they're saying basically the king is in jail, we established this new government, which is a republic. Now, the framework for it has to be put together. The National Convention delegates will do that. Before that, and to some degree, as they're doing that, they have to decide what to do with the king. Well, the radicals in the National Convention are going to want to put the king on trial for treason, and that's exactly what happens. The king will be accused. A lot of this evidence that they have is just simply based on salacious rumor that had been circulating in the months leading up to the attack on his palace. But the, the evidence will prevail in the trial. The king will be found guilty.
Now, with the king found guilty of treason, the death, well, the sentence for that is usually death by execution for treason. However, there is a debate within the National Convention of whether or not to put the king to death, whether that's necessary. There are some members in the National Convention who just simply want to keep the king in prison for life, and then there are some who want to just simply execute the king. And you have factions that begin to develop within the National Convention. You, you have the more radical factions, which will be the, the Jacobins, which is one of the radical clubs that had started after the new constitution under the Legislative Assembly was established. And then you have the Girondins, the, the more moderate group. They're the ones who don't want to kill the king, but imprison the king. So you, you do have these factions. And what's interesting is one group actually sat on the, the left of the speaker, and those they would be the left, and then the others that sat on the right of the speaker would be the right. So you, you have the, the, the more radical faction being on the left, and soon they would be called the left, and then the more moderate or conservative group called the right, because that's where they sat.
Now, the king will be, uh, the, the vote to execute him within the National Convention, it will be pretty close. The numbers, uh, of the more than 700 people would who would vote, it would be about a 30-vote margin to execute the king. So Louis XVI, the king of France, uh, will go to the, the guillotine in January of 1793. Uh, he would be taken from his prison to the center of Paris where the guillotine awaited. The guillotine had been invented the year before in 1792 as a more humane way of executing people, a more efficient way of executing people rather than by hanging or by the ax. This guillotine, when the king is taken there, he begins to give a speech, and he's quickly drowned out by the drums. Of course, the drums are signaled by the executioners there. The king is placed in the guillotine, and his head is severed from the body, and his head is held up before the Parisian crowd as a traitor, basically, to France. And many people in France had seen the king as a traitor ever since he tried to escape back in 1791. So now the king is not only in jail, on trial, he's dead. Dead. And so there's no more king of France, and essentially the monarchy dies with Louis XVI, who for two years leading up to this, many of the Jacobins had been referring to Louis XVI as Louis the Last, and he indeed was the last, at least for the time being, of the Bourbon monarchs.
At this point in 1792, within about eight months, Marie Antoinette would go on trial, and she's pretty much doomed from the start. Marie Antoinette, because she's not French, she's Austrian, uh, they're basically the rivals of France to some degree. And she was seen by many Parisians as a person that lived a life of royal excesses, living in the Versailles, the largest palace in the world, and living a life of luxury while most people in Paris suffered. So she was not only a foreigner, she lived this certain lifestyle, she didn't connect with the people of France. They also saw her as the connection with these Austrian armies that had begun to advance toward France. Uh, and at her trial, she is going to be accused of virtually everything in the book, and she will end up being executed as well. And this would be about eight months after her husband, Louis XVI, was executed. The Marie Antoinette was actually taken to the, to the guillotine instead of in a, in a carriage. At least Louis XVI got an enclosed carriage, but she was just simply thrown in a common criminal cart and paraded through the streets of Paris to the jeers of the Parisian crowd. Uh, and when her execution takes place, the more radical elements, the militant radicals of the revolution begin to form an idea of cleansing France and establishing this so-called Republic of Virtue. And to have a Republic of Virtue, what you needed to do was to get rid of all enemies of the Republic. The enemies of the Republic would be the nobility, the aristocracy of France, and would be anybody who really would be against the Republic. You could be someone who was a, not only a noble, but maybe a peasant who happened to be a royal. You also might be someone who favored the Catholic Church, which of course lost their independence in the struggle, in the, in the revolution prior to that. And to some degree, you can just simply not, you know, say the right words and end up being guillotined by simply not being enthusiastic enough about the revolution. It's going to end up going that far.
And what you have is, uh, is a Reign of Terror that will begin to take place, uh, in France shortly after the execution of Marie Antoinette. Things get a lot, lot bloodier, uh, in Paris. This Reign of Terror will be conducted by the, the National Convention. But what's interesting, the National Convention puts together this new constitution establishing the French Republic, also creating things like universal male suffrage. There's no property qualifications for voting. In fact, their, uh, democracy to some extent was even greater than what they had in America at the time. And what, what happens at this point is people begin to say, you know what, we have to do is, is put all of the enemies, to try to wipe out essentially all of the enemies of the Republic. Now, what happens in France is a counter-revolution that springs up against the revolution. This is going to be not in Paris, but pretty much in the countryside. Uh, in fact, the, the 83 departments that I mentioned earlier, these regions of France, in 60 of the 83 departments, there will be uprisings against the new French Republic. And in these uprisings, what the new French government was trying to do under the Republic was to put down these rebellions and these revolts, and they were going to do it by terrorizing, by simply executing the opposition, and to gain control, to make sure that the Republic is virtuous, that that all the elements that would possibly bring France back to what it was are gotten rid of.
And what the National Convention decides to do is to suspend the constitution that they just put in place in order to create a almost a martial state in, in many respects. What they created was this Committee of Public Safety, which consisted of 12 members, and essentially what this Committee of Public Safety had was dictatorial powers over France. They ran France. Now, the Committee of Public Safety was led by one of the Jacobin radicals in the National Convention. This would be Maximilien Robespierre, and Robespierre would be the leader of the Committee of Public Safety, and he would direct this Reign of Terror over France over a period of more than a year, almost a year and a half. The Reign of Terror would last, again, beginning with the execution of Marie Antoinette and then going forward from there.
Now, what they will do is they will, there will be spies for the Republic, in favor of the Republic, that would try to root out people that might be in opposition. And the first people that would be caught up in the Reign of Terror are, are easy to get. The, the, the opposition party that voted against putting the king to death would be an obvious target. These are people that were within the government that were considered radical themselves to a large extent, because they wanted to get rid of the monarchy, but simply because they didn't want to put the king to death, they are going to be targeted, and maybe their family will be targeted. And again, all traces of the nobility, clergy who did not swear an oath of allegiance to the, the new government, which what they were required to do if they were to keep their jobs, those people would be, uh, executed. And to, on some accounts, the Reign of Terror would, you someone would be arrested in the morning and then tried in a tribunal, basically the committee of 12 would be doing this, and, and very quick fashion, and almost in mass, uh, and then the executions would be held that afternoon. So you could be picked up in the morning, tried, uh, around lunchtime, and then executed in for the afternoon. Executions, uh, which would be held in the center of Paris.
Now, this, uh, this process, maybe 800 people a month, would go through the system. It was said that maybe 20 to 50,000 people would be executed by the guillotine, maybe 200 to 400,000 others tossed in jail in order to make the Republic more virtuous. An extremely bloody time. And again, you can just simply, you had neighbors, you know, let's just say you have a dispute against your neighbor, and or a long-running feud with your neighbor that you didn't like. Well, you could turn his name in to the special force there and to the Reign of Terror and have your neighbor eliminated if you didn't like your neighbor. It was that sort of thing. So there's a lot of paranoia that went with it. Uh, and the, the militant radicals just kept ratcheting up this Reign of Terror. And what it does is it does, you basically either got on the team, or you were, you were a goner. You were either in jail or executed. And many people just simply got on the team. They were on the side of the new French Republic.
Now, what's interesting is at this time, and during this period of the Reign of Terror, the French army would be the, would grow, swell in numbers. Over 800,000 people would begin, uh, would would serve in the French army. These numbers would far outnumber the opposition forces of the Austrians and the Prussians, and they began to get their act together against the Austrians and the Prussians and not only expel them from France or French territory, but begin to go on the offensive against the Austrians and the Prussians. As time goes on during the Reign of Terror, the counter-revolutionary forces in France begin to subside, begin to to go down. The numbers of revolts in the departments begin to subside. And then some people that are in the National Convention that begin to say, all right, I think that we have things under control now, maybe we can ease up on the guillotine a bit. These people that would suggest that, what happens is we get into the spring of 1794 and into the summer of 1795. These people would end up being caught up in the, being executed just simply for suggesting that they may be ought to ease up a bit, that there's no longer that threat. They use the threat from outside forces from Austria and Prussia, and also the threat from within with the counter-revolution, in order to start the Reign of Terror, but they, they kept ratcheting it up and ratcheting it up.
Now, it's also during this time there was a, a concerted effort with this Republic of Virtue by Robespierre and others on the Committee of Public Safety to de-Christianize France. To, this is the time where they confiscated the Catholic Church's property. They are going to melt down the treasures of the Catholic Church, the church properties, and churches themselves would be transformed into the, these, uh, temples of reason, as they call them. Even the Notre Dame Cathedral would be referred to as the Temple of Reason. One of the things that they try to do when they de-Christianize France during this time, they, there are some elements of the Republic who just simply want to establish atheism, but there are some people like Robespierre, actually believe that the French people needed some, something divine to worship. They attempted to establish this Cult of Reason, and this Cult of Reason would be the focal point of people's worship, this outlet for the people of France. Of course, many people aren't going to buy into this, many people are just simply not going to accept this, but this is a push. The other thing that they do that's related to this to some degree is they will change the calendar of France because of course the calendar is based, the calendar is based on the Christian calendar when it begins with Christ and so forth. But what they will do is they'll establish a new calendar and put year one as the start of the revolution. So day one, year one would be September 22nd, 1792, and then it would go on from there. And what they did is they divided up the year into, uh, months that were all equal in length, and the, the weeks were actually 10-day weeks, and they eliminated Sunday out of there. So you had three 10-day weeks that would make up a month. Sunday was eliminated. What they were hoping to do was they were hoping that people would forget when Sunday was, and especially if enough time went by, you wouldn't know when Sunday was. That was one of the goals with, uh, with creating this new calendar. Streets in France that have Saint with, you know, that are named after a saint, those streets would be their names would be changed. All of this went on during this period of this radical revolution in the Reign of Terror.
Now, what happens is people begin to say that they need to ease up on the guillotine. Robespierre, actually, he has this, uh, Cult of Reason that he's trying to establish. And in July, early July of 1794, he has this festival for the Cult of the Supreme Being. Now, the Supreme Being was this being of reason that the French people were supposed to worship, and he had this big elaborate festival in Paris where, and then he sort of shows up, uh, in a very dramatic moment, as the person that was supposed to be the, this, the Supreme Being. And many people, that even the militant radicals were saying, you know, Robespierre is off his rocker now, he's gone too far. And because the Reign of Terror had kept going at just such a dramatic level, people began to think that something needed to change. And, when Robespierre goes to speak before the National Convention after that event with the festival of this Cult of the Supreme Being, he's shouted down. And that's something that never really happened. Robespierre, he was this brilliant orator who established his prominence early on with the, in the, when the Estates General was first called, when they first established the National Assembly, this brilliant orator, and all of a sudden, he is now being shouted down. And then he comes back the next day with the, and he says he has this list of people who were against the, the Republic, basically within the National Convention, people that are in the room, but he didn't reveal who was in the list on the list. Uh, and he was to come back the next day to reveal who was on the list. And of course, no one knew whether they were on the list or not. What they do is the convention is going to organize, and they're going to place Robespierre under arrest. And, a couple of his close followers under arrest. And Robespierre, in July, uh, of 1794, will bring an end to the Reign of Terror by his execution. Robespierre will be executed. Finally, the same guillotine that had executed thousands of people during the Reign of Terror will bring the Reign of Terror to a close with the execution of Robespierre. That was on July 27th, 1794.
And what you have at this point is this calming effect in Rome. This Reign of Terror is over with, and you have the more moderate that come back in power within France. The Jacobins are now on the outside, and many of the Jacobins are being rounded up. Many of the people that were connected with Robespierre will be rounded up and killed. A newest constitution, they'll come up with another constitution in 1795 that will set up another form of government. And what they're going to do instead of universal male suffrage, the, the voting in this new form of government will be limited to property owners. And which of course limits the, the amount of people who could vote. And many people were saying that this new constitution, that this radical constitution with the Republic was established by all of these people that were able to vote, this new form of government in these, the Sans-culottes, who didn't have property but were able to vote, having property owners as the ones to vote, of course, this was still the law in many of the American states at the time, and in England at the time, to have a stake in society, that if you were a property owner, you had a real stake in society, and you had a stake in the stability of the society. So this new constitution in 1795 will limit voting to property owners, which of course has been the case before.
Now, the new constitution that they set up in 1795 puts in place not a, not an executive, but, uh, and not a monarch, but a directory of five men that would serve as the executive arm of the government. So you have five people that were in control of the executive branch. Again, they were trying to eliminate the possibility of monarchy, one-person rule, by having five people rule, that would dilute the power at the top. And they would also, since you would have five people, you would also have a decision being made in some form with votes not being able to tie. Now, the Directory is going to rule France, uh, from 1795 to 1799. For the most part, these are capable people, competent people that are running the Directory, but there's not, uh, there's not a lot of tranquility, or there's not a lot of order to, to some extent, in France. And there's still a problem with bread prices, a shortage of food, and things like that. The Directory constantly has to rely on the French army for their own protection and for order. The French army is going to have to save them. And one of the guys who ends up saving the French army is a young Brigadier General. He actually became a Brigadier General at the age of 24 years old. When the French had been fighting the Austrians and the Prussians, the, uh, the man's name was Napoleon Bonaparte. And Napoleon was, uh, he was born in Corsica, which is an island in the Mediterranean that had fallen into the hands of the French the year before he was born. Uh, he, but he was a, he spoke French, of course, but he had an Italian accent throughout his life. Napoleon Bonaparte rose to power and rose to fame to a, to a degree in the fighting against the Austrians and the Prussians, and also the British, who had entered the fight, as, during the period of the, of the Republic in France. Uh, and it's Napoleon who will end up saving the Directory from a Parisian mob in 1795. This, uh, Parisian mob will be subdued by Napoleon, and so he gets the support of the members of the Directory. They basically say, okay, this is a guy that we can rely on. And the Directory will allow Napoleon to go to, uh, fight in Italy, to lead in a French army into Italy against the Austrians, and he'll have wild success in Italy against the Austrians, pretty much transforming all of Austrian-controlled territory in Italy into the hands of the French. So the Italian Peninsula, to a large degree, falls under control of the French as a result of Napoleon's spectacular victories there.
By 1797, the Directory is still ruling France. They're going to agree to send Napoleon to Egypt. And what they wanted to accomplish with Egypt was not only to possibly create a new territory or a new colony for France that was relatively close, but also to reduce the British influence in Egypt and influence in the region of Asia. They would diminish the British economy by controlling Egypt. Now, what happens, uh, Napoleon goes to Egypt, he's successful on the battlefield, but the expedition is a failure. And the British Admiral, Admiral Nelson, will destroy the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile on August the 1st, 1798, is when that happens. The French fleet is destroyed. Napoleon, at this point, was able to slip out of Egypt and back to France. And he, he gets back to France in time to where he can kind of control the information of the, of the events down in Egypt that were not favorable to, to him or to France at all. So he kind of, he, his popularity is maintained for still from what he did. He, what he did is he focused on the sort of this expedition, these expedition efforts and scientific expeditions and historical archaeological, uh, finds in Egypt during his time there, rather than focus on the military side of it, which was really a failure.
Now, by the time we get to 1799, there is one particular member of the Directory that says, you know what, if I can just have Napoleon, uh, on my side, uh, with his army and with his popularity, then we could overthrow the Directory, have an overthrow of the state or a coup d'état, which would, uh, instead of having five people in the Directory, have maybe one person on the Directory with Napoleon being the head of the army at that point, was what would happen. Now, what they do, the Directory, by 1799, is not viewed favorably by the French people at all, because things again are not really operating as they should in France with the economy and so forth. And in November of 1799, with the fact that you have Napoleon is the head of the army, the Directory will be overthrown. And what they will do is they'll establish a new constitution. In fact, Napoleon draws up this new constitution, and he will put it to a vote of the people. The people of France will accept this new constitution, and it's not quite what they thought. They thought that it would be, uh, much more democratic than, uh, than it actually was. What the new constitution does is it sets up these positions of consul, these three councils. And so instead of a five-person Directory, you would have three councils. Then this goes back to the old Republican form of government that Rome had, which had two councils. But what ends up happening is Napoleon gets himself named to be the First Consul. So you have a First Consul, a Second Consul, and a Third Consul, and if you're the First Consul, then you're going to be the one that's calling the shots. And it's also quickly revealed, those 83 departments which ran themselves during the Republic largely independent of the national government or more of a federalist system, the 83 departments will be, uh, what Napoleon will do is he will put in a prefect in each of those departments that would be answerable to him back at the, on the national level. Uh, and so the 83 departments lose their autonomy and they lose their democracy to a large extent under this system. And instead of the Directory, uh, falling into the hands of maybe one or two or three people, it falls into the hands of Napoleon. And since he controls the army, he's able to use his popularity with the army to have the control. Now, he has the control because of the force of the army, but he also is going to create an atmosphere, uh, and have measures to where everyone gets some sort of satisfaction. What Napoleon was hoping to do, and what he ultimately does do, at least for a short time in France, is to establish a sense of order, a sense of control, a sense of growth for the economy and so forth. So he is going to keep a lot of what happened with the revolution, with the revolutionary, you know, establishing and sort of throwing out the old regime, you know, we're not going to go back to these feudal, this feudal system that the peasants had to live by. And so he, you know, as far as the peasants are concerned, they're happy with Napoleon being in control because they don't have to go back to the old feudal dues and the feudal system and, and so forth. The bourgeoisie, they're going to be happy because they're going to be able to maintain control of their own property. He also caters to the other elites, sort of the Enlightenment crowd, by patronizing science and research, establishing, uh, certain institutions of, of science and observatories and things like this, that will win over to some extent some of the elites in France. And he also creates order, basically things are going to work in France, something that really hadn't happened during the upheaval of the revolution, certainly in the last 10 years, and even before that, in the last years of Louis XVI, things didn't work very well in France. The price of bread, the harvest are good, the price of bread comes down, things are a lot better. What Napoleon also does is he'll make up to some degree with the Catholic Church, naming the Catholic Church the most favored church, but he still allows for free freedom of religion and toleration of religion as well. So what Napoleon does, he, in effect, brings an end to the revolutionary period. And at the same time, Napoleon is going to go back to establishing what France used to have, and that is an absolute monarchy.
Well, um, we definitely see how the French Revolution was not the same as the American Revolution. Now, France actually helped the Americans fight Britain during the American Revolution, and that was part of the lead-up to the French Revolution. But our revolutions are, are different in, in a way, because we, of course, didn't kill our leaders. We didn't kill a certain class of people in the, the United States in America, and we never got that radical element to that extent, that that Reign of Terror that you saw in the French Revolution. Now, you know, the leaders of the American Revolution, the colonists were pretty, I guess you could call them radicals at the time because of their beliefs, but it, it nowhere, it got nowhere close to what happened in France during the French Revolution. So when we come back from for our next lecture, Mr. Chauvin will actually continue discussing France and talking, of course, about the Napoleonic Empire, Napoleon's rise to power, how he uses the army, and how he creates, as I said, an empire, which we know from previous lectures, the monarchy, the king, was actually the, the essential, the optimal form of government, and it was found that empires were simply too big to last. But Napoleon creates this empire, and when we come back, we'll find out how. Until next time.